Territorial conflicts between "indigenous people" and migrants identified as "mestizos" are intensifying across Latin America's indigenous territories. Saneamiento -understood as the removal of mestizos from indigenous territories -is often presented as a solution to these conflicts. Yet, the underlying premises of the process remain poorly understood. This article aims to shed light on saneamiento as a process in Nicaragua, which is one of the first countries to implement saneamiento in its current form, and to draw attention to its inherent contradictions. Through the dual lenses of cultural politics and political ecology, I suggest that saneamiento reproduces the sedimented ethnic categories and difference-making that define neoliberal multiculturalism. This establishes an indigenous/mestizo binary, glossing over internal differences in power, realities, and identities within these seemingly natural categories. At the same time, saneamiento casts territorial conflicts as an exclusively local problem requiring local solutions, obscuring the broader political-economic and institutional structures at work. The paper reviews the prospects for saneamiento in resolving territorial conflicts in the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua specifically.
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